You've just browned a half pound of ground beef, sweated a chopped onion until translucent, and cooked that chopped garlic until fragrant. Time to reserve all that goodness and drain off any excess fat. What you're left with—crispy, caramelized brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan—are the makings of a killer pan sauce. All you need to do is add a little liquid (water, stock, and wine are the most common options) and scrape them up with a wooden spoon. But if you're renowned food writer-cum-personality Nigella Lawson, you reach for the nearest bottle of fortified wine instead.

That's the tip we came across while combing through her cookbook How to Eat while considering it for our Epicurious Cookbook Canon. "I don't drink much, and so don't tend to have bottles of wine open," explains Lawson. "So if I need alcohol for cooking, I need to have it in the sort of bottles that come with a screw-top."

It may sound a little unconventional at first, but it solves a problem with a brilliantly simple solution. Want to avoid using half a cup of red or white wine, only to have the rest of the bottle go unused and spoil after a week? Look to fortified wines like Marsala, vermouth, and dry sherry. Just a splash of any will form a flavorful base of a quick pan sauce, and they'll last for months and months after being opened. Making a dish that calls for red wine? Use Marsala. If you're looking for a white wine substitute, turn to vermouth. Or throw the whole white substitution angle out the window and turn to sherry—it's dry, yeasty notes adds a different flavor entirely.

Making sure you have any of these fortified wines on hand means that you'll never be without delicious pan sauce ever again. Now, pour yourself a glass of sherry (or make a classic martini with that vermouth) and drink to Nigella.